


a lament of autumn leaves

by lovedsammy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Full of Angst, Gen, at least everyone's being at least semi-comforting?, will is taking abigail's death hard af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovedsammy/pseuds/lovedsammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MAJOR SPOILERS FOR HANNIBAL 3X02!<br/>She’d died because he couldn’t save her. Because he’d been foolish, hoping to twist the game that the Devil had tipped in his favor, had already won long before Will had made it into a game. Because he’d been reckless, idiotic, selfish. But even as much as he blamed himself, it was the Devil – not God, never God – who giveth and taketh away. Abigail was the price for his sins, his transgressions, and she didn’t have to be.<br/>“I’m sorry.” He tells her. Over and over and over again. “Abigail, I’m so sorry.”<br/>If he’d known, he’d never have tried to contend with Hannibal Lecter. If he’d known, he would’ve accepted Jack and Alana’s deaths, as much as it would’ve pained him, and departed with Hannibal and Abigail to Europe or wherever they would’ve gone. It wouldn’t have mattered – it would’ve just been the three of them. If he’d known, he would’ve made the right choice, the only choice that would’ve mattered, if it meant Abigail still walked among the living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a lament of autumn leaves

He wakes from his coma with Abigail’s name on his lips.

It’s been two days since that bloody, rainy night that occurred in Hannibal’s kitchen. He’s had blood transfusions, emergency surgery, and been moved to a medical facility for trauma patients in that duration. The nurses tell him the news. Alana and Jack survived their wounds, with some sustainable damage. Alana would never walk without a cane again. Jack, however, is already on the road to recovery. And Abigail… well, their reluctance and silence tells him everything he needs to know.

They quickly sedate him before he can go into cardiac arrest, or otherwise rip his wound back open again. The nurses keep him unconscious when he starts to come to, knowing it’s better to let the wounds heal while he sleeps. Even unconscious, he can’t escape the terrors of that night, of being wheeled out on a stretcher still feeling Abigail’s pulse slow beneath his fingers. He dreams of Jack and blood pouring from his neck, fishing with Abigail, the broken spread eagled Alana on the pavement. He dreams of Hannibal’s leer as he slices their surrogate daughter’s throat in front of him, hears her panicked and shocked gasps as she tries to make sense of her own blood on her hands. He dreams of darkness -- or maybe it’s just blood so dark that it’s black. It submerges him, but only enough to keep his eyes open, forced to watch as Abigail is dragged down under, hand outstretched. He can’t even flex his fingers to reach for her.

  
When he wakes, it’s been almost a week. Abigail is there, sitting at his bedside, smiling, a bandage on her neck. He blinks, slurring her name. She vanishes. It takes all of ten seconds before the harsh reality overcomes him like the tidal wave of blood from his nightmares.

Abigail is dead.

-

He insists on going to see her.

The autopsy was performed the morning after the incident, but no next of kin claimed her body. He’s told that she was being refrigerated until his input, as her only registered guardian still with a passable claim to her, could be given.

Jack, having been the quickest to recover between himself and Alana (who is still bedridden with a fractured pelvis), advises him against it. He says it would only make the hole that Hannibal carved inside him – inside all of them all that much deeper. He isn’t wrong. But Jack’s hand on his shoulder only feels agonizing rather than comforting, and Will brusquely pulls out from within his friend’s touch, shaking his head.  
“Jack, no one else is going to see her,” He chokes. “She has no family, no friends, no one to claim her body. The rest of her family wants nothing to do with her because of what her father did or they’re dead. The only people who give a rat’s ass about her are me and Alana.” He firmly leaves _him_ out, because Hannibal doesn’t deserve to be on the list of people who genuinely cared about Abigail. Not after what he did.

“Please, Jack,” He tries weakly, unable to stop the tears. “I need this. I need to see her.”

Jack studies him for a solid moment, and seems to understand, because he sighs heavily. “All right,” He relents. “I know she meant something to you, Will, even if I don’t know exactly what that is. It’s for that reason alone I’m letting you go. But you need to try and take it easy, you did just wake up from a coma.”

  
Will nods stiffly, his breathing in measured hitches as he tries to compose himself. “She was the closest thing I had to family,” He whispers, hoping Jack understands the admission. Jack nods, a softness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

He swears he hears Jack restrain a sob as he exits the room.

-

The medical examiners are kind enough to tell him that they retrieved her for him.

He can’t stop his legs from shaking when he gets to the room. They nearly give out when he sees her lying on the table, pasty white and nude at the shoulders except for the rest of her body, which has been covered with a grey plastic sheet that doesn’t suit her. She’s been cleaned up, the slit in her neck stitched together. The sutures forming a triangle around her chest show the work of the autopsy. Which, while customary, need not to have been conducted, in his opinion. It was clear what she’d died from. All it did now was give her more scars to mar her flesh.

By the time he’s standing in front of her immobile body, his neck and the top of his hospital gown at the collar are thoroughly soaked. He presses warm fingers to her cool cheek, daring to hope that she’d open her eyes with that flaring, spicy deadpanned look that she often gave him. He’d have to settle for the fact that her expression right now was not what he’d seen in her final moments, the fear as Hannibal sliced her throat open, but of peace. But it should not be this way, because she should not be dead.

But she is. She is dead. Abigail, the girl he’d saved from her father. Abigail, who he’d thought he’d murdered, having had her ear placed into his stomach for him to vomit up later. Abigail, who he discovered Hannibal had killed. Abigail, who met him in his dreams, smiling and youthful with a fishing pole in her hand. Abigail, standing before him in Hannibal’s kitchen on that rainy night, crying and terrified after pushing Alana to what she’d thought had been the woman’s death. Abigail, wanting to go to him after Hannibal’s scalpel had found its way into his bowels. Abigail, who took Hannibal’s hand when he extended it, frozen in fear when the arm wielding the scalpel came to rest at her neck. Abigail, giving heaping gasps of breathless terror when it cut her open. Abigail, whose beseeching eyes locked with his as the both of them lied in a pool of their own blood, trying to gauge if he was alive as she lay panting beside him. Abigail, who went paler and limper beneath his fingertips as they slipped from her oozing wound, unable to save her.

She’d died because he couldn’t save her. Because he’d been foolish, hoping to twist the game that the Devil had tipped in his favor, had already won long before Will had made it into a game. Because he’d been reckless, idiotic, selfish. Because he’d wanted justice against Hannibal, some kind of closure after what he’d done to both Will and Abigail and countless others. But even as much as he blamed himself, it was the Devil – not God, never God – who giveth and taketh away. Abigail was the price for his sins, his transgressions, and she didn’t have to be. The sobs come quickly, wracking his body, and even if it’s against all procedure, against all standards and practices, he buries his face into her covered chest, cupping her face, stroking it as though she could feel the gesture.

“I’m sorry.” He tells her. Over and over and over again. “Abigail, I’m so sorry.”

If he’d known, he’d never have tried to contend with Hannibal Lecter. If he’d known, he would’ve accepted Jack and Alana’s deaths, as much as it would’ve pained him, and departed with Hannibal and Abigail to Europe or wherever they would’ve gone. It wouldn’t have mattered – it would’ve just been the three of them. If he’d known, he would’ve made the right choice, the only choice that would’ve mattered, if it meant Abigail still walked among the living.

He cries until he’s sure the plastic is soaked through, but it’s never enough. There were never enough tears to express his sorrow that this young woman he’d saved that day in her father’s kitchen could be lying here now instead of him. He kisses her forehead, brushing her hair with his fingertips and whispers a broken and anguished goodbye.

-

Her body is formally released to him for arrangements. He does so only to appease the coroners as well as Alana and Jack. When he’s asked what they should put on her headstone, he says what everyone else had already been thinking, what he’d thought of before he’d discovered she was alive but had no body to go through with it.

Freddie comes to see him, as well as Margot. Freddie is more sympathetic than he’s ever seen her, moreso for Abigail than him. Nevertheless, it is appreciated. She loved Abigail, too. Margot expresses her deepest sympathies as well, and clasps his fingers before she leaves.

“Moving on isn’t just a distraction. It’s a rebuke,” She quotes, using the words he’d spoken to her from what felt like so long ago to encourage him. “Show Doctor Lecter how strong you are. Survive him.” She gives a little squeeze, and he smiles tightly, the first time he’s attempted it genuinely since he woke up. Even if Margot had lied to him about her intentions that night, she’d been – almost been – the mother of his child. He held her dear somewhere in his heart, even if there was no romantic or even sexual attraction there.

  
His ire at Freddie returns; she’s snapped a picture of him in bed, recovering. But she leaves a little note, promising to respect his wish to protect Abigail any further scrutiny. She’s suffered enough.

-

A few days later, they bury Abigail.

Alana is a frequent visitor to her grave. She has no lingering resentments towards Abigail, only grief and the wish that things could’ve been different. Sometimes, she and Will visit her together. On those days, she grabs Will’s hand, giving such a painful squeeze he’s afraid she’ll break it. But they’re strong, so he squeezes back just as tightly, even when his knuckles turn white.  
They revel in the solace and pain it brings them.

Jack, for his part, doesn’t bring up any of Abigail’s past transgressions and gives her a modicum of the respect he hadn’t shown her in life. Will tells him everything. How Abigail killed Nicholas Boyle at Hannibal’s request – because he’s sure now that’s what happened – and how even if she’d assisted her father, she’d done it unwillingly. Jack acknowledges it solemnly, saying Will was perhaps right, but it didn’t matter now. It was better to let the truth die with her, instead focusing on the tragedy of the life she’d lived.

Five months later, Will is the only one who visits her grave every single day.

He’d buried her in Wolf Trap, close to him.

-

Eight months and twelve days later, Chiyo’s cautious gaze meets his. “Hannibal took someone from you.” She deduces.

He nods evenly.

“Who were they?”

Will swallows down the bile that’s gathered in his stomach, giving a forced, pained smile. “She was my daughter. Her name was Abigail.”

“Then are you here to take someone from him?” Her voice is filled with apprehension.

He doesn’t give her an answer.

He just wants to know where to find Hannibal.

-

When he does find him, he’s not filled with the rage and murderous intent he’d thought he’d be. Instead, he’s tired, weary, and weeping as he clutches Hannibal by his collar, fist shaking. He’s got him pressed up against the wall, grip slackening. Hannibal could easily push him off.

But he doesn’t.

Will can barely make coherent speech, his sight is so blinded. He just repeats the same thing over and over.

_Why, why, why? Why Abigail? Why?_

“It needed to happen,” Hannibal says, and there is no trace of regret nor coolness to his voice. Just a statement. Just like his brutal murder of Abigail.

No, it _didn’t_ , he wants to say, shout; _none of this needed to happen!_

Will finds himself punching on Hannibal’s chest, but what he once relished in his fantasies, beating Hannibal to a bloody pulp and leaving him for dead, is not what he finds his body is willing to partake in. He sobs, falls to the ground, taking Hannibal with him. Hannibal offers no comfort, and Will doesn’t seek it.

“She _trusted_ you,” He tells him, anger and betrayal and sadness all coating the tone of his voice, protruding from him like a gas.

“I know,” Hannibal admits. “And she cared for you, Will, as you did her. Her death was the only way I could successfully hurt you.”

Will shakes his head, wanting so easily to hate Hannibal. “I can forgive a shark for being a shark,” He hisses, “But I can’t forgive him for who he rips to shreds.”

The meaning is simple.

I forgive you.

_But I won’t forgive you Abigail._

-

Almost eleven months after that bloody night, Will visits Abigail’s grave once more. Instead of the tears glossed in pain and sorrow, they are somewhere straddling the line between composed and barely holding it together.

“We caught Hannibal Lecter, today,” He tells her. “He’s in his rightful place -- my former cell at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Imagine him of all people in a prison jumpsuit.” The edges of his lips quirk, although it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just wanted to be the first to tell you that it’s over, Abigail.”

He caresses her tombstone, feeling as though a weight has left him. “You’re free.”

_I’m free._

_We’re free._

-

He comes less frequently now, but still often enough to be considered unhealthy. But he’s trying. God, he’s trying. Molly always offers to accompany him, or just even bring Walter along with him to make it easier, but Will tells her this is something he needs to do privately. A memoir to his distant life.

It’s two years later, and he and Molly are about to be married. Walter’s about to become his stepson. For the first time in his life, he’s got some sense of stability. He’s happy. His chaotic life at the FBI that was intertwined with murder and pain and Hannibal Lecter were behind him.

“It looks like I got the family I never knew I was searching for until I met you,” He tells her. “But don’t worry, Abigail. You will never be replaced. Not to me.”

He leaves her a bouquet of flowers and promises to visit again next month for her birthday.

As he leaves, this whispers of the wind feel soothing around him, warm and peaceful. The pre-autumn leaves sway, and a single red leaf falls onto his coat. He holds it between his forefingers and smiles. It’s close to the color of Abigail’s hair. He lets it go free, however, into the breeze. It’s like Abigail’s flying out there somewhere, too. He can practically hear her laughter in the wind.

But perhaps it’s just Mother Nature being particularly active – and compassionate – today.


End file.
